5 Reasons To Twitter

Micro-blogging seems silly, especially when you try to describe it to people.

Why would anyone in their right minds do that? Especially corporations and enterprises used to massaging language to fit their needs and adept at turning one sentence into three?

Well, here are five reasons (and there are many more) to use consider using Twitter.

Focus Groups
People on Twitter opt in to follow you. That means they decided that they wanted to hear what you are saying. This is a powerful vote of confidence from your customers, partners, associates, employees and prospects. It’s also a built in focus group for floating new ideas, soliciting feedback, and trouble-shooting new products and services. It’s fast, honest, and easy. For example, Little, Brown & Co uses Twitter to solicited feedback and reviews on newly published books.

Finding Employees
What better way to engage with potential employees for job openings? What better way to let people know you’re hiring? Candidates will clearly be tech savvy and interested in your company. Twitter also provides an audience of more than seven million candidates (not including all the people those people are connected to).

Distributing Content
Twitter is another powerful channel for brands that provide content – from Marvel Comics to the New York Times. Marvel uses Twitter to distribute links to its more than 4,000 subscribers on content such as polls, new comic art and exclusive interviews. The New York Times has excelled at pushing links on breaking news – from economic news to airline yesterday’s airline crash – to its more than 23,000 Twitter subscribers.

News Gathering
News gets broken on Twitter. Last year, news about earthquakes in northern California and the U.K. first appeared on Twitter. As the subscriber base continues to increase, it’s like having eyes and ears around the world. So if you collect news for a living – be it literary news or technology news, Twitter is a goldmine of instantaneous news.

Discover Trends
Twitter isn’t just about talking. It’s also about listening. If you’re a company in the fashion industry or in consumer goods, Twitter is a valuable resource in measuring the “hotness” or “notness” of your own products and those of your competitors. If you listen closely, you can discover the why behind trends. What marketer or communicator doesn’t value that kind of insight?